Compartment 14B

I had a migraine this morning so I had to take my meds and call in sick. Right now Iím at the stage where Iím functional but still iffy so Iím afraid that once I leave the sanctuary of home Iíll go downhill again and get trapped somewhere. I might do some easy household chores like laundry but for the moment sitting here suits me just fine.

I speak from experience about the ďtrapped somewhereĒ by the way. Once in university, I had all the warning signs and ignored them because there was an author reading I really wanted to attend. I just got worse and worse until, when it was over, I decided to rest for a moment in the university centre, sat down, and couldnít get back up again. Eventually someone stopped and asked if I was alright and I had to get him to call the campus police who came and ended up driving me home. That one was a doozy and I was out of commission for two days.

As a teenager I used to suffer through them without taking anything but I eventually sought a doctorís advice and she put me on an anti-inflammatory/anti-prostaglandin. That helped a bit but as an adult I decided that enough was enough and after consulting with my doctor and the migraine clinic here in Ottawa, I ended up with a two-prong treatment: since many of them are linked to hormonal fluctuation, to prevent them I was put on the Pill full-time, no breaks; to treat the ones I did get, I was prescribed Maxalt.

Maxalt is wonderful. I take one and usually within two hours Iím functional again. Itís not a heavy-duty painkiller like some people assume; itís a cerebrovasoconstrictor (I have no idea if I spelled that correctly), which means that it shrinks the blood vessels in my brain (i.e. it treats the cause, not the symptom).

I suspect the migraine this morning was brought to me by my friendly neighbourhood weather system. It rained last night and itís noticeably cooler today and, as Iíve mentioned before weather/pressure fronts are the second biggest cause of migraine for me.